A new hope: 8 songs that should be played at Star Wars: In Concert but probably won’t be
Say what you will about the new Star Wars prequels: No one can deny John Williams’ prowess at turning in epic but hummable scores to those movies and their beloved forefathers. Star Wars fans are understandably creaming themselves at the chance hear music from all six scores recreated live by a full symphony orchestra and choir while specially edited footage from the films blasts out of a three-story-tall screen during Star Wars: In Concert’s pair of United Center performances on Sunday. Still, an event specifically tailored for such hardcore fans seems oddly limited by only building its repertoire from the franchise’s movies. That’s why The A.V. Club used the force to dig up these lesser-known songs from the Star Wars oeuvre that deserve the full treatment.
"R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas," Christmas In The Stars
Admittedly an obscure entry in the canon, Christmas In The Stars is a concept album hinging on R2-D2 and C-3PO journeying to a droid factory where robots construct toys for someone named "S. Claus." The pair's quest, of course, is to teach these poor little bots the meaning of Christmas, which, even more logically, is done by song. Midpoint track "R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas" seems like a perfect fit for an early December concert, and is made even more plausible by the fact that 3PO himself, Anthony Daniels, narrates Star Wars: In Concert. Sure, the song is cheesy as hell as far as Christmas carols go (children profess their love for Artoo in a song given to him by C-3PO as a gift), but so what? This song also stands as Jon Bon Jovi's first professional recording in 1980, and it helped launch his career. If it was cool enough for Bon Jovi, isn't it cool enough for an official Star Wars concert?
“Millennium Falcon,” 1996's Star Wars: The Musical! and “In Me, A Friend You’ve Got,” 2008's Star Wars: The Musical
There’s been at least two documented musical adaptations of Star Wars—one by a high-school theater company in 1996 (featured in 2001's fan doc Star Woids) and a college-aged adaptation more recently in 2008. Though they both have amateurishly goofy production values, the former's Grease-inspired mockery of Han Solo and the latter's spoofing of Yoda would inject a nice dose of levity after a piece like, say, the portentous tones of “The Imperial March” or “Duel Of The Fates.”
“Goodnight, But Not Goodbye,” The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special is the intergalactic kitsch gift that keeps on giving. No one who appears in it emerges unscathed—not even Bea Arthur, who, for some reason, is operating a saloon at the edge of the galaxy. With “Goodnight, But Not Goodbye,” Arthur, as Ackmena, the part-time bartender in the Mos Eisley Cantina, bids farewell to her evening’s fare after an Empire-imposed curfew. Since most of Star Wars: In Concert is orchestral and classical-minded, why not fling a little saucy fun—emphasize the “sauce”—into the proceedings?
The Ewok "Yub Nub," Return Of The Jedi's original release
In the 1997 special-edition re-master of the original trilogy, the Lucas team made some adjustments. While we can forgive a computer animated Jabba The Hut and the cleaned up space sequences, the most heinous crime was committed at the end of Return Of The Jedi, when Lucas removed the song "Ewok Celebration," better known as "Yub Nub," in which dancing Ewoks sing in their native tongue. They replaced it in the 1997 remaster and each subsequent remaster with a John Williams composition called "Victory Celebration," which, sadly, featured neither yubs nor nubs. What, George Lucas? Those cuddly warriors worship C-3PO and help defeat the Empire, and you censor their victory song?
"Happy Life Day," The Star Wars Holiday Special
Before the Star Wars droids admitted there was such a thing as Christmas and beeped along to the great carols, they helped their wookie friends celebrate Life Day during The Star Wars Holiday Special. Everybody was there to celebrate: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and most importantly, Princess Leia. Forgetting that she's a dignified lady who doesn't usually burst into song, the princess graced her friends with a rendition of "Happy Life Day" (a thinly veiled reworking of the Star Wars theme about joy and love). It's a moment in pop-culture history that still makes Harrison Ford cringe, along with the rest of the world.
Meco’s version of the Empire Strikes Back theme
Remember that disco was the pop music of choice when Star Wars premiered in 1977, so it was perhaps inevitable that, once the film became a legitimate phenomenon, a kitschy version of the theme would soon be pumping onto dance floors everywhere. Studio musician Meco obliged the masses, producing the chart-topping but patently ridiculous “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band” from the album Star Wars And Other Galactic Funk (the gold standard of embarrassing records in your parents’ vinyl collection), which essentially reworked Williams’ score with a cheap synthesizer and primitive laser sounds. Meco’s similar treatment of the Empire Strikes Back theme is better, pumping up the jam to the quintessential “Imperial March,” adding the grooviest, nastiest bassline this side of Bespin and baiting someone to holler “may the funk be with you.”
